Willow is Traminette-based, with percentages of three other white grapes in it.Paul Vigna/The Wine Classroom

Writing about blends these past couple weeks has acquainted me with several, including Willow from Knob Hall Winery, located in Maryland's Washington County.

Willow is a dry white blend that's Traminette-based (47 percent) and also includes Chardonnay (37 percent), Pinot Gris (11 percent) and Vidal Blanc (5 percent). Knob Hall released the wine just a couple months ago, and owner Dick Seibert said it has been a popular addition to a list that already includes White Oak, a Chardonnay-based blend.

Willow wasn't exactly a desperate measure, but it was borne out of Knob Hall's Traminette sitting for months, sales lagging. "I was like, 'We're never doing this again,' " Seibert said by phone on Thursday. "You know, what did I do? I had been told that there was a Traminette following and, all of a sudden, after about six months, the aromatics really started coming into it and it just all sold in like a month and a half.

"But during those six months, we said, 'Since it’s not moving, let’s make another white blend and try to add to it. [Willow] is predominantly Traminette, but we wanted to add any areas where it seemed to be missing a little bit. And that’s really what we’ve been doing with our blends. You know, wineries sometimes will try to hide stuff in blends. But that’s not what we’ve been doing. We’ve been trying to say, 'OK, here’s a wine, you know, where can we add it it with another varietal and kind of make a better structured wine? That’s what we did with our White Oak." And, indeed, their Willow.

Seibert said that the next two releases will be sparkling wines, a Vidal-based sparkling and a Chambourcin rose sparkling wine. The latter, I told him, is what I wanted to sample.

"Oh my god. Unbelievable," he said of the Chambourcin-based sparkling. "We’ll come out with it if we don’t drink it all before we bottle it. Funny thing is, I'm not crazy about sparklings. I got so sick off champagne at a wedding one time that it has been years since I could even look at it. But this is really good. We were like, 'Wow.' "

Knob Hall grows 5 acres of Chambourcin, so the choice to use that grape made sense. It also allows for them to do a first pick on the grape, when the sugar level isn't what it will be in another few weeks, and use those grapes for the sparkling rose.